Tale
by De la Coeur
Summary: Sometimes I wonder if anyone will write our story." Hermione reflects on how their story will come out in time. Seventh year.


 SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1A good story truly is the best thing in the world, I think. 

            Ron always harps on me for reading, and sometimes, I must admit, even I don't enjoy it.  But what I try to convey to him, beyond anything else, is that reading _is_ what's most fun for me. It heals my soul and lets my mind _fly_. 

            Now that I'm nearing the end of my time at Hogwarts, I have a lot of time for reflection.  And sometimes I wonder if someone will tell our story, one that was nearly finished before we even graduated.  It is a story of love and hope, of devotion and extreme sacrifice, of pain and loss and, in the middle of it all, heroism. 

            Harry's story, of course, will be told, in biographies and history books and God knows what else.  Everyone has followed the great Harry Potter since his birth, practically, and every witch and wizard will remember him long after he's gone.  His story is unquestionably worthy of all the attention: a baby who defeats the darkest, greatest wizard of all time, then grows to fight him again, and again, until he defeats him just as was prophesied.  He's an average boy with a not-so-average scar and an extraordinary well of courage and love and loyalty.  He truly is a hero, and will be remembered as such. 

            I wouldn't have it any other way.  Harry has endured more than I have ever dreamed in my darkest, most lingering nightmares.  He deserves the praise and adoration he gets, because God knows he won't get it from his aunt and uncle.  But we, Ron and I and the Order, we know that he doesn't want adoration, he just wants to be normal, to be free.  We see the signs of what Voldemort has done to Harry: the lines permanently etched on a face too young for them, and an unbearable sadness buried deep in his eyes.  Gray streaks are already showing in his sooty hair, and at the age of seventeen, there is a maturity, an _oldness_ in his countenance that just shouldn't be there.    

            As I sit here beneath the willow by the lake, I watch Ron and Harry tussle on the grass.  The sun is shining, the lake is sparkling, and Harry is laughing.  I like to think that Ron and I are the reason Harry is still able to laugh that way, as though the world has told one big joke.  And perhaps, just maybe, we are.  Maybe without us, Harry wouldn't have been able to do all that he has done.  Maybe we played a part in saving the world, too. 

            I wonder sometimes if, when Harry's story is written (which it will be, no doubt about that) whether Ron and I will be included.  Ron was there from the beginning: he was the assurance that Harry needed on the train, the big-nosed carrot top who was the reason for the rift between Harry and Malfoy, and the nervous too-tall friend in line for the Sorting Hat.  In becoming Harry's best friend, Ron faced his biggest fears and his biggest challenges: a mountain troll, the spiders and Aragog, the most wanted criminal in all England.  He bravely sacrificed himself in giant chess (and I saw the whiteness of his face when he did it) and was at Harry's side as often as he could be.  However much he complained, he was there through all that we went through in our seven years at Hogwarts.  Ron is courageous.  He is passionate, sometimes frighteningly so, and smarter than he thinks. He is our backbone, Harry's and mine. 

            And I? I'm the brains behind the operation.  Throughout the seemingly interminable time within those walls, I pushed and prodded my best friends to do better, try harder, and although they complained bitterly (and Ron fought me just as bitterly), I know that they were grateful for me, just as I was for them.  It was my memory and attention to detail that helped us in first year on our way to defeating Quirrell, and those same attributes that helped us time after time in figuring out what Voldemort was up to.  I figured out the basilisk riddle (excuse the pun) and I used my time turner, meant only to help with my studies, to save Sirius.  I helped Harry with all of the tasks in fourth year during the Triwizard Tournament.  

            I say this not with vanity, because I know that I didn't do all this on my own.  Harry is the hero here.  He's the drive and the courage, just as Ron is the passion and the stability.  I'm just the smarts and, I think, the love--because I do love them both, very deeply.  Harry I've loved since first year, as my best friend and part of my family.  Ron took longer to love, what with his prickly exterior and his barbed comments aimed my way.  But when he let me in, when he softened enough to let me see the inside, I fell hard and deep and head-over-heels in love with him.  

            As I look at them now, their faces and arms gleaming with sweat, their bodies past the gangly youth phase and onto the mature, adult men they'll be, I feel that love so strongly that it manifests itself in prickling tears in my eyes.  And when they come to sit next to me, one on either side, we sit in quiet contentment, just as friends should.  

            I look at one, then the other.  Dark hair and glasses may be recorded in history books, but they won't capture his beauty, I decide.  They won't be able to write the incredible person he is beyond the heroism.  And the red hair and long body may not ever be set down in stone, I think, but he is just as essential.  No writer would be able to represent the love and leadership he has shared with us, anyway.  

            I've finally come to the conclusion that that's the way it should be.  Our story exists, whether it's written or not.  

            I settle back to watch the sunset with my best friends.          


End file.
